54-40 or Fight eBook

Here, then, seemed an opportunity for delay, which
Mr. Pakenham was swift to grasp. He arose and
bowed to Mr. Tyler. “I am sure that Mr.
Calhoun will require some days at least for the framing
of his answer to an invitation so grave as this.”

A short silence fell upon us all. Mr. Tyler half
rose and half frowned as he noticed Mr. Pakenham shuffling
as though he would depart.

“It shall be, of course, as you suggest,”
said the president to Pakenham. “There
is no record of any of this. But the answer of
Mr. Calhoun, which I await and now demand, is one
which will go upon the records of this country soon
enough, I fancy. I ask you, then, to hear what
Mr. Calhoun replies.”

Ah, it was well arranged and handsomely staged, this
little comedy, and done for the benefit of England,
after all! I almost might have believed that
Mr. Calhoun had rehearsed this with the president.
Certainly, the latter knew perfectly well what his
answer was to be. Mr. Calhoun himself made that
deliberately plain, when presently he arose.

“I have had some certain moments for reflection,
Mr. President,” said he, “and I have from
the first moment of this surprising offer on your
part been humbly sensible of the honor offered so old
and so unfit a man.

“Sir, my own record, thank God, is clear.
I have stood for the South. I stand now for Texas.
I believe in her and her future. She belongs to
us, as I have steadfastly insisted at all hours and
in all places. She will widen the southern vote
in Congress, that is true. She will be for slavery.
That also is true. I myself have stood for slavery,
but I am yet more devoted to democracy and to America
than I am to the South and to slavery. So will
Texas be. I know what Texas means. She means
for us also Oregon. She means more than that.
She means also a democracy spreading across this entire
continent. My attitude in that regard has been
always clear. I have not sought to change it.
Sir, if I take this office which you offer, I do so
with the avowed and expressed purpose of bringing
Texas into this Union, in full view of any and all
consequences. I shall offer her a treaty of annexation
at once! I shall urge annexation at every hour,
in every place, in all ways within my means, and in
full view of the consequences!” He looked now
gravely and keenly at the English plenipotentiary.

“That is well understood, Mr. Calhoun,”
began Mr. Tyler. “Your views are in full
accord with my own.”

Pakenham looked from the one to the other, from the
thin, vulpine face to the thin, leonine one.
The pity Mr. Tyler felt for the old man’s visible
weakness showed on his face as he spoke.

“What, then, is the answer of John Calhoun to
this latest call of his country?”